Following the tragic deaths of five police officers in Dallas, Texas, during a rally for Alton Sterling and Philando Castile on Thursday night, the Dallas Police Department deployed a small robot designed to investigate and safely discharge explosives.

Officers attached a bomb to the robot ad hoc-style — detonating it and killing the sniper while keeping the investigators out of harm’s way.

According to companies that manufacture bomb-disposal robots interviewed by The Intercept, none were aware of their bots ever being turned into lethal weapons, though one company acknowledged the robots could be adapted to hold weapons.

A spokesperson from Pedsco, a company in Canada that supplies robots to other jurisdictions in Texas, confirmed that he did not “know of any instances of an explosive used to disable a suspect” attached to a robot owned by law enforcement.

Pedsco would not comment on its own robots, citing possible confidentiality conflicts with customers, but pointed to instances where explosive ordnance disposal robots had been used offensively, such as a 1993 case where Prince George’s County Police Department deployed a water cannon attached to a robot to disarm a suspect hiding in a closet.

“The robots often have mounts that allow various tools to be used remotely, including water cannons (disruptors) and shotguns,” he continued. “The robots are designed to remotely deal with suspected packages, so remotely dealing with armed subjects would not be that much different (except that IEDs don’t move).”

Eric Ivers, the president of RoboteX, which sells robots to police departments in Texas (though not in Dallas), said that the use of a police robot to kill someone was unprecedented. “We are not aware of any robot, from any company, having been used for this purpose before,” he wrote in an email to The Intercept.

According to a presentation prepared for the Seattle Police Department in 2009, the SPD’s bomb squad uses a robot made by Northrop Grumman, the REMOTEC Andros — which the Dallas PD also owns. It costs almost $200,000, weighs 425 pounds, and is useful for “bomb call out,” “SWAT operations,” “surveillance,” and more.

The accessories and weapons listed include a 12-gauge semi-automatic shotgun, a water cannon, hooks, blades, talons, and an X-ray system.

Even in the military, surveillance and safety robots are almost never used for lethal attacks. There are only a few instances reported, also improvised, according to Peter Singer, a strategist and senior fellow at the Washington-based think tank New America Foundation. “I’ve never heard of another similar police use [of bomb robots] … and it’s not established doctrine in the military at all,” he told The Intercept.

Security researchers have expressed concernthat any technology haphazardly turned into a weapon escalates the concern of it being hacked.

However, companies have been selling drones and robots as multifaceted, sometimes violent tools for law enforcement for years. The Guardianreported in 2013 that one product, the “Switchblade,” had been advertised as “the ultimate assassin bug,” allowing law enforcement to pilot a small drone and then lunge it forward and kill a target.

The Dallas Police Department has refused to confirm which robot was used against the suspect on Friday morning, but several reports have noted that the city’s public records have identified prior purchases from Remotec, a Northrop Grumman subsidiary. Both Dallas police and Northrop declined to comment to The Intercept — or elucidate which types of explosives were deployed or how they were attached.

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I’m less concerned with what type of robot was used and more concerned with the following issues:

Why does a police department have bombs at their disposal? Do they have bombs only big enough to blow up one person? Two? An entire house? An office building? Are these bombs built “in-house” by an expert or are they purchased from the military?

The most important question of all has to be: what was the due process involved in this decision to kill? Who decided to execute (i.e. assassinate, kill, blow up) a citizen? Was there a judge involved? A lawyer or a DA? Was this a municipal decision or was the Governor called? Can a police department decide that arresting a citizen in too dangerous, and then instead choose to execute instead of arrest?

This decision seems like a seminal event, comparable to the execution of Al-Awlaki in Yemen. Can police departments, or DAs or judges, now decide to execute people without a trial?

If these self-delighted asses ha enough time to bring the robot in, set it up, set the bomb up, and trundle it into where the shooter was, they had enough time to thoroughly secure the area and wait him out.

The had no intention whatsoever to follow the law, only to use their toy to kill someone.

Guaranteed, if the shooter had been white, they’d have gound the time.

This is genuinely a fascinating subject. All federal guidelines relevant to explosives in public went out the window. Along with potentially many other things. Exploding someone is not a spur of the moment or unplanned decision. The percuremeant and transportation of explosives is a bitch. Then logistics of getting them into place (even for LE). Does LE really have that power on their own to act so quickly – ‘prolly not. Ive requested transcripts of the interrogation along with any photos and other details, so should you.

This is just awesome. It is troubling, a bit gruesome and disgusting too. But damn it is neat. Where do we go from here? stop! Stop! or we will shoot! No wait let’s just blow him up said the LEO to the other (Who genuinely perceived an imminent threat if they pursued; later it was discovered no threat existed – oops). We demonize ISIS or others for beheading people. Though this is ok – tolerable and acceptable. The fact the individual was clearly mentally ill due to ‘service’ brings a bit more to be discussed.

The dangers of property destruction up to deaths of non-combatants is virtually an absolute with using explosives to kill people. The dangers of mishandling explosives is an absolute, placing them intentionally near the public? Is there currently training we were unaware of LE are given for exploding people? Or was this a let’s give it a whirl off the cuff.

Orland0 50 civilians murdered the suspect was literally trapped (by all verified accounts). He was shot. Dallas shot 5 le he was exploded.

If we genuinely want to keep LE safe it does make sense to give them remote controlled weapons even missiles – then allow them to sort things out later.

I am all for killing cop or people killers where needed. But there are many facts which we do not know and will most likely remain forever unknown until ripped from their hands. Lot of really cool questions here. This was my off the cuff thoughts. Cool article – ty.

Could this have been another FBI-manufactured “controlled” terrorist plot, which, in present case, went tragically. terribly wrong?

How, in your interpretation, did it go “tragically. terribly wrong”?

Doubtless there were FBI infiltrators in the crowd in Dallas on the night of 7/7 …

They are every where at all times, anyway.

… a certain ‘Professor’ Griff, that the FBI has had him under constant communicational surveillance for some time; while Micah X. Johnson ostentatiously proclaimed himself a follower of Professor Griff on his own Facebook page, etc …

They have all of us under surveillance anyway. If you are “not well seen” (for whichever reason strikes their fancy (one of them justifying their own salaries)) and are on facebook, carry a cellphone, … then you are collaborating on your own demise, but it doesn’t really matter. I am not on facebook, I don’t carry a cell phone, … (heck! the only reason I have a land line (without caller ID) is because as part of my work and life I need access to the Internet) … and to my amazement, my family’s and friends’ I found out one day they had black listed my black @ss in the FBI criminal index.

Curious whether the cops destroyed their $200,000 plus robot in the process. Seems like a Bazooka would have been a better solution.

I am not so sure a “bazooka would have been a better ‘solution'”, but $200,000 are just peanuts for their R&D budget. That robotic experiment was part of it. That was not another police abusive engagement or overreaction.
They used the tried and true strategy of waiting for a relatively flashy incident (from which we will always have plenty of instances anyway) to introduce and perpetuate their b#llsh!t.
I couldn’t stop watching it anymore at the point they were pointing at that lady (and her baby?) whose man they killed point blank for no reason whatsoever. OK, how “aggressive can you possibly be while holding your baby and being surrounded and pointed directly and fatally at you by so many pigs?” In fact, I was so upset (and I am not naive at all about police abuse (once they almost killed me)) that I wondered how come more people didn’t go out and start shooting more pigs for a change.

Agree with Salzman, best solution is to train cops for de-escalation rather than immediate domination and control.

I think they need more than de-escalation training and while they are at it a little bit of, you know, humanity, would not hurt. Part of that humanity thing is de-escalating the general, world-wide violence and abuse in which we all live right now (which doesn’t seem to have end but plenty of “easy” starting “reasons” (just wait for Killary to take over!)). A good start for us Westerners would be understanding that Muslim people are sentient beings (kind of like us) who can even think for themselves and seem to have a hard time understanding that the reason why we “freedom-lovingly” bomb them and destroy their right to live in relatively stable societies and take care of their own business (including getting rid of their own dictators by their own choosing) is because “‘God’ is telling us to ‘safe democracy, the ‘free’ world, …”
I am not philosophizing here. I grew up in a police state (another kind) as part of a family of high profile dissidents and in Cuba police are trained not to abuse people and put in prison with the same criminals they were abusing if they don’t follow regs. I talked about it at length here.

Why was it so damn important to take out the perp with a bomb instead of well… just waiting until he got hungry or killed himself? He was after all cornered, contained, surrounded, the public evacuated safely,and the police had cover. Again, and this is the point, the impatience of the police costs lives, mostly people that would eventually give up peacefully after talking and de-escalating the situation. The damage was already done and yes, he may not have given up but we’ll never know because the dead don’t talk. I still think there’s more to this tale that needs explanation which becomes even more hidden every day.

Why was it so damn important to take out the perp with a bomb instead of well… just waiting until he got hungry or killed himself?

Or surrendered, or fell asleep. I’ve been asking the same question.

I’ve only thought of two possibilities, not mutually exclusive: they were in a collective blind, bloodthirsty rage because their brother gang members (yes, I think they behave just like street and prison gangs when “one of their own” is attacked) had been killed and injured, and/or it was deemed important that the suspect not become a defendant in a public trial, able to communicate by testifying, through his attorneys, etc.

What?!? No trial for the… SUSPECT… ? Guess there won’t be one, now. Or was this trial by cop? Or trial by bomb squad? Everybody sure – beyond a reasonable doubt (and who ever has THOSE any more?) – the right guy was, ahem, got? Maybe the robot just looked like it was only carrying water to the thirsty suspect, kinda helping negotiations along…? What was the suspect told their options were, if any, in ahem, negotiations? What do YOU think?
Innocent until proven guilty?

First on the robot. These robots have been used to bring in detonation devises to explode suspected bombs. How this one was used is still unclear from what I’ve read or heard at this time. That said it does seem like the suspect was already cornered so what this did was end the stand-off early. Not sure if this was the way to go since many of the details are sketchy to say the least. He is still a suspect until proven guilty in a court of law but we are too quick to primarily execute people nowadays without due process. Couldn’t they have captured him first and let Jack Ruby kill him later?

There is no public video of this suggesting cops had successfully cleared the area. Still odd there is nothing from a high rise window even. Curious whether the cops destroyed their $200,000 plus robot in the process. Seems like a Bazooka would have been a better solution.
Agree with Salzman, best solution is to train cops for de-escalation rather than immediate domination and control. Disarming a large percentage of them would be a good idea as well. Cops could call in situations that require a response with weapons. Somewhat like the Brits do successfully.

Probably people are more shocked that the fellow has shot dead five officers and injured as many more. Anyway, it was quicker and more humane than using those fake injections that he would have no doubt been subjected to after being appropriately tortured and water-boarded.

You should renounce your pessimism and try to look at the brighter side of gloomy stuff.

No, not everyone. I think so too. Who are you to offer up police officers to potentially fatal risk – completely unnecessarily – because you believe that someone who has (in public and monitored by goodness knows how many photographers and videographers) already killed five other oficers, should be arrested and tried?

Tactics are to remove the threat. If this was the only safe way to remove the threat, it is not only legitimate but legal.

Oh, Lord, please save us from armchair generals who pronounce judgement with neither experience nor knowledge of what they are talking about!

The police are useless in almost all situations. The only time I ever called them, they came to check out my house after it was robbed. They did literally nothing, even at one point asking us why we called them. No follow up, nothing… After that experience, I will never call them for help. Police, in my opinion are hugely over appreciated. While I’ll never hope for one to be shot, I don’t need them at all. Think about it, when was the last time you called them and they provided the help you were asking them to provide. Very rarely happens. (Car accidents are the only thing I can actually think of where cops are used to help the public) I, on the other hand feel less comfortable when they are around, not more. I’ve never once been in trouble with them either. Cops expect us to shower them with praise, when they are really just fee collectors in a really hot costume.
I’m sure that’ll piss some of you off, I don’t care. Cops just aren’t part of any solution to any of my problems. “What if someone invaded your home? Or killed your sister?” Fortunately for me, neither of those things have happened. If knock on wood, something like that did happen, maybe my opinion of them would be enhanced. But I really do dislike the over appreciation of a profession and the blindly having to follow the orders of some dude who’s gotten 6 months of “training”. I’m white and live in a rural area, if I was anything other, I’d be flat out scared of them.

Thank you for your honest opinion about the police, though I tend to disagree with you to some extent. If you look at the whole world, police is actually the most organized bunch of criminals in every country. Thankfully, we here don’t have to worry about this much as they tend to be pretty harmless by your own admission, hostile as it may be towards our policemen. So please don’t be scared of our police.

Could this have been another FBI-manufactured “controlled” terrorist plot, which, in present case, went tragically. terribly wrong?

Doubtless there were FBI infiltrators in the crowd in Dallas on the night of 7/7, is it possible that included among their operations was the monitoring of Micah Johnson? After all, it has been self-reported by one of Johnson’s own intellectual models, a certain ‘Professor’ Griff, that the FBI has had him under constant communicational surveillance for some time; while Micah X. Johnson ostentatiously proclaimed himself a follower of Professor Griff on his own Facebook page, etc…

Seems highly unlikely, previous ‘agent provocateur’ activities by undercover police at political rallies, from WTO protests to BlackLivesMatter, have been limited to things like smashing store windows or spraying graffiti in front of TV cameras, and maybe tossing a brick at riot police.

Here’s an option you can support: the Russians have opiate-based knockout gases for their police units, although the overdose problem requires them to have naxolone (aka Narcan) on hand as well; it was used in the Russian theater hostage-taking in 2002:

Russia’s top health official said Wednesday that the gas used in the special forces storming of a Moscow theater held by dozens of gunmen was based on Fentanyl, a fast-acting opiate that has many medical applications, the Interfax and ITAR-Tass news agencies reported.

And, just to point out the obvious, “de-escalation and patience” after 11 police officers have been shot, five of them fatally, seems a bit unlikely.

Well, it comes down to the difference between “community policing” in a relatively polite society, versus “military enforcement” in a war zone.

And you know, we are somewhere in between those two poles, with many police chiefs around the country viewing themselves as leading “paramilitary law enforcement agencies.” This has been enhanced by the distribution of military gear and vehicles to police forces, and the growing proportion of ex-military MPs in many police forces.

Add in the widespread availability of powerful weapons, and yes, life in America often feels like life in a war zone; gated communities are minicosms of the Iraqi Green Zone, while poor neighborhoods are free-fire zones.

We have to finish off ISIS and all other Wahabi and Salafi folks quickly. Containing them isn’t going to work. There is only one person who can and will do it for us. And it is definitely not Hillary Clinton, God bless her.

Pedestal-mounted or mobile, and some are self-animated AI rather than simply remote control. You can google “samsung robot” or similar and find just how many models are out there. It IS a new wrinkle to put an explosive on one of them; usually a weapon of 5.56mm to 12.7mm was what these babies carried, or sometimes a grenade launcher.

I do feel for the shot cops, but considering how much ironmongery they have on their side, considering how many people we’ve seen murdered while helpless by cops, it’s hard not to also see it as the underdog in a fight suddenly landing a solid blow.

” . . .it’s hard not to also see it as the underdog in a fight suddenly landing a solid blow.”

Nutter. Mass slaughter and boxing analogies? I suppose Al Qaeda members said the same thing about 9/11. And if it had been your friends and family members getting killed, would you also have cheered it on?

Civilization advances one small step at a time.God help US out of this disaster of zion uber alles.Everything evil thing we do,from drones,to preemptive war,to torture,collective punishment,to subjugating captive populations we learned from those haters.

This is a very big deal but you would never know it going by the MSM. Going by comments from the industry; this is the first time a Robot has been used to deliberately kill/murder a person in the USA by legal authorities. A large part of Police killing is a result of the new training rules where Police are expected to take minimal risks; don’t dust it up if you can Taser em.; any doubt, no wrestling for you officer, just shoot em. Why is this Genie out of the box with no MSM negative comments?

The use of the robot was simply the use of a tool to accomplish a result.

If the Dallas police had decided that the individual posed an imminent deadly threat to officers or others, it really doesn’t matter what tool they chose to use to disable him.

Had they been able in the situation to use a sniper with a specialized long range rifle to disable the individual, that’s just another use of a particular tool. Same with a charge by armored officers with automatic weapons.

The only real issue here is to examine exactly what went into the decision that offensive deadly force was necessary to end the situation.

You do know that this opens a can of worms,as others ,outside of law enforcement might see it as viable as the police?
Another human step down from justice,as the cops obviously felt their dead more important than civilian dead,with a summary execution,never employed before on a suspect.

You can use a thermonuclear device to kill a mosquito, but there are more effective options.

Killing people using guns is the American way. Perhaps I am growing old, but why not stick with the simple, tried and true?

JDawg -> Benito Mussolini: July 9 2016, 3:36 a.m.

Grenades come to mind…

Duce you made me laugh after a tired full day of reading and coding. But then I realized that even our jokes have a preoccupying sinister ring to them. How far are we to the point they start attacking us as the “terrorists” they know well we all are? Or, better put, will they ever stop doing killing us simply as if they had no other way of doing target practice?

I think after that incident (which was a calculated move not a random, excessive reaction (they wait for situations that would make it easy to introduce and perpetuate their b#llsh!t)) we should all expect for those police “robotic experiments” to become common place. How long will it be until they start employing drones to kill people as they please. You will get killed anyway, right?

Something I can’t get (I am a “technical” person) is , why are so ostentatiously holliwoodesque and try always “to kill a mosquito with a nuclear weapon”?

If technologies such as aerial refueling has been tried and perfected for almost a century and now they are even considering giving robots “human rights” (Muslim people seem to be even less than bots) why do they poison whole towns with highly cancerours chemicals?

We’ve had these dark scenarios as long as sci-fi has been in print. The use of deadly police robots is something Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 — the book, not the movie so much — envisioned, and apparently the technology has caught up.

The mechanical Hound slept but did not sleep, lived but did not live in its gently humming, gently vibrating, softly illuminated kennel back in a dark corner of the fire house. The dim light of one in the morning, the moonlight from the open sky framed through the great window, touched here and there on the brass and copper and the steel of the faintly trembling beast. Light flickered on bits of ruby glass and on sensitive capillary hairs in the nylon-brushed nostrils of the creature that quivered gently, its eight legs spidered under it on rubber padded paws.
¶
Nights when things got dull, which was every night, the men slid down the brass poles, and set the ticking combinations of the olfactory system of the hound and let loose rats in the fire house areaway. Three seconds later the game was done, the rat caught half across the areaway, gripped in gentle paws while a four-inch hollow steel needle plunged down from the proboscis of the hound to inject massive jolts of morphine or procaine.
— Fahrenheit 451

And the clandestine operatives/snitches working as journalist within rt are ameliorating the news in favor of corrupt murderers under the color of law where the victims of police brutality for many centuries now is still prevalent while claiming and playing the farse of assimilation and integration by serving and protecting with murder and criminality with impunity. We never saw so much coverage for the murders of non-combative, non-threatning father mothers and children as we see the corrupt operatives covering in favor of the corrupt establichment. criminals and murderers under the color of law continue to spark outcry in every street neighborhood of the usa. are you till singing the land of the free? Disgusting is short. Disgusting is short.

And it would be disgusting if the corrupt operatives or corrupt law enforcement would implant anything else in the shotter belongings in order to advance their macabre agenda.

The corrupt establishment has already been censoring media like the following video that is a must see and realize.https://youtu.be/v5asE7Wj_6s

This sets a very dangerous precedent for law enforcement agencies to suspend due process for the accused in our court to now engaging in the rules of war against any criminal where the police are judge, jury and executioner.

There’s no doubt that the Dallas Police could have just waited it out, but they seem to be too impatient or didn’t trust the judicial system to give this man his day in court. So they took to giving out their own brand of justice, one that you would only see in war in engaging in an enemy combatant rather than a U.S. citizen who is accused of a crime.

I don’t approve of using robots in this case; killing is a job for human beings. It also raises ethical issues – did the robot consent to being blown up, or was it exploited by its human overlords?

In addition, it appears to be wasteful of resources – at $200,000 a pop, only the larger police departments will be able to afford these exploding robots. Many small town police departments have proven they can kill a suspect far more cheaply. You can use a thermonuclear device to kill a mosquito, but there are more effective options.

Killing people using guns is the American way. Perhaps I am growing old, but why not stick with the simple, tried and true?

Duce, see my post above about the Samsung battle robots in Korea. I’m only surprised the police didn’t use their Homeland Security grants to deploy a fully-armed robot with a 5.56mm weapon or maybe a 40mm grenade launcher. Why improvise something this crude when you can buy something off the shelf that’s been in use at the DMZ for the last ten years?

It is scary that the only means the police find to neutralize this suspect is to blow him up. Who condemned him? The fact is he was surrounded and had nowhere to run to so the police if anything had time on their side but patience is a curse word to our security agencies. And killing is a mark of heroism and virility.

As John Lennon would say. “Imagine!” It is as if there were official, public regulations stating: “if you are a decent person you can’t work in Wall Street” ;-)

Did you see what happen with all those (mostly) teenagers protesting as part of “occupy Wall Street”? They coordinated their move nation wide and here in NYC the NYPD jumped them at once very violently, took their laptops and after taking their harddrives out, destroyed them (a friend of mine was able to grab a few laptops ;-)), then made them sit doggy stile and hosed them with water containing pee and feces. As if it were not enough, they included most of them in the FBI criminal index and this is for life …

The cops don’t need tanks and machine guns and explosive robots.

Actually, someone pointed out to me that they actively hire “patriots”, “veterans” fresh from combat. So it comes as no surprise that they are so trigger happy

Also this incident brings into question negotiations with the dallas police ” yes we are going to have the robot bring you a phone” then it explodes isn’t that kind of an underhanded move – wasn’t everyone worked up about the muslim bombers

But how will you avoid this? Kids love toys not negotiating! But, what is good for the goose should be good for the gander, right? I am sure some people’s fancy had an adrenaline rush after seeing this. Expect robotic Unabomber 2.0 soon.

I don’t see an end to the atmosphere of violence, all that endless abusive back and forth. Do you?

Yeah, so an exploding phone is something used by Israelis against Ayash “the engineer”, though they did not deliver the phone via robot.

No, I don’t believe this is going to end well; it will continue. Since that army reservist did such a good job of taking out targets, the police will become more militarized. Well the cities that have the budgets will get more of course, but all will be more trained like Israeli policing style possibly

If the police would stop acting cowardly this might not happen
There have been videos of cops beating up old men, teenage girls, pregnant women these are acts of cowards.

The shooter in Texas has harmed his message as now his supposed enemy gets the sympathy instead of keeping the focus on the victims murdered by the police.
The police need to be demilitarized – enough of the SWAT teams storming into places to break up old men playing cards or kids smoking pot.
The cops don’t need tanks and machine guns and explosive robots.
They need to start being humans again part of society.

The dallas shooter will probably be responsible for more lives as police officers will likely kill more citizens/victims because they fear for their safety .

Also this incident brings into question negotiations with the dallas police ” yes we are going to have the robot bring you a phone” then it explodes isn’t that kind of an underhanded move – wasn’t everyone worked up about the muslim bombers

Ya know I was thinking along the same lines. This incident is just getting the police more sympathy. It’s a horrible tragedy of course, but it certainly doesn’t do the message of de-militarizing police and ending abuses any good.

And this “killer robot” thing should be VERY concerning. This is the very type of thing we should all fight against.

The suspect had military training so he was probably well concealed from sniper fire. If he was hiding in a corner of a concrete wall, the bomb technique would be the only effective way of stopping the shooter.
A block of C4 placed on the outside of the wall would create a shattering effect on the opposite side of the wall, spraying the shooter with high-velocity concrete plus the blast wave. I bet the guy looks like hamburger.

“The suspect had military training so he was probably well concealed from sniper fire. If he was hiding in a corner of a concrete wall, the bomb technique would be the only effective way of stopping the shooter.”

What about lobbing in tear gas? What about waiting him out? You really want to capture him alive if you possibly can–you can find out if there are accomplices or if he acted alone, etc. Killing a suspect when you don’t need to eliminates a valuable source of information.

People walking around with guns at the time did not help the situation– it confused it. Just ask the black guy whose picture was circulated as a suspect on social media because he had a gun and was wearing camo.

As for the robot aspect of all this– I was not there, so..– i don’t fully know what the situation was– but from reports I have to say it’s very disturbing that suspects are being blown up like that. It reminded me of the Dorner case a few years back. The decision to kill a suspect is obviously one you can’t revoke later– a loss of opportunity to fully understand the circumstances that lead to the attack… if there were conspirators, etc.

Given the fact that this is so high profile, the decision to blow the guy up must have been very carefully vetted. But scrutiny is appropriate now– there must have been a very clear and present danger to justify this circumvention of the court system and destruction of, essentially, evidence relating to the attack (ie, info that could have been collected from the alleged killer.).

Right, Due Process? Where’s all the outrage about targeted drone strikes? I guess Dallas PD is Judge, Jury and Executioner. How about taking defensive positions and waiting for the shooter to reveal himself. I am completely uncomfortable with Police suddenly having more Lethal Force options. I see no legal authority for this kind of execution.

The problem is why do people feel the need for guns when 20 years ago there was none?
Violence in Chicago,Ferguson and any inner city or ghetto is ongoing and terrible,and innocent people now feel the need for guns,which in turn scares the police officer into firing first.
The war of terror comes home,as chickens return to their roosts.
Blowback everywhere,and from every quarter.
Obomba will cry,and Hillarious will ask why,as we die.